The Black Cat (1989).
“Well, I think we should have another stab at sleeping.”
Directed by Luigi Cozzi
Written by Luigi Cozzi
Starring Florence Guerin, Urbano Barberini, Caroline Munro, and Brett Halsey
1. (The Stage)
In this unofficial “sequel” to Susperia, a screenwriter and director pitch a 4 page script about a witch named Levana to a very powerful movie producer with the intention of having the directors wife, Anne, playing the titular role. Unfortunately, the producer is dead and the witch is real (kind of?). This witch does not want Anne playing her in a movie, so she makes her refrigerator stop working and dresses up as a nice repair man.
2. (The Good)
If you’re looking for a movie to confuse you, you’re in luck. Part of the charm of The Black Cat, or Demons 6 as it’s sometimes called, is that the entire movie literally makes no sense. The first twenty minutes is pretty straight forward - these two goons talk up a script that is literally less than 10 pages and then weird stuff starts happening. At first it’s Levana crashing through a mirror and spewing hot green goo on Anne’s face like she’d just said the word of the day on You Can’t Do That on Television, but it soon escalates into a medium’s guts exploding out of her stomach and a giant head floating outside of Anne’s house shooting laser beams from it’s eyes. That’s how fucking bonkers this film gets.
The special effects and gore are endearing just because you can see that they did everything they could on a shoe-string budget.
3. (The Bad)
This movie borders on the edge of being so bad that it’s good, but ultimately falls back on the side of being so non-sensical and just not bad enough that it’s just bad. The acting is fine and the English dub sounds like you’d expect but it’s never outlandish enough to be funny. The line that really made me laugh was when the refrigerator goes out in the middle of the night and Anne goes to investigate it. Her husband comes down, takes a Coke out of the fridge, pops it open, and says, “Well, I think we should have another stab at sleeping.”
Also, if you’re here because of the Edgar Allen Poe relation, you can turn back now, as there is no Edgar Allen Poe relation. Contrary to what the title card says, this has absolutely nothing to do with his Black Cat story. In fact, the movie also has nothing to do with it’s own Black Cat story, because the random shots of black cats that were haphazardly inserted never share the screen with any of the actors involved. A little research showed that they were put in after the movie was done, because the studio lined up a series of Edgar Allen Poe films. The film was also released under the title Demons 6, which is another odd choice, as the film doesn’t have anything to do with demons either.
4. (The Ugly)
These guys got a deal with a producer after writing a four page script? I’m over here working my ass off on 120 page runs? What am I doing wrong here? On the plus side, I guess mine aren’t summoning ghosts.
The witch is about as ugly as it gets, it’s face bubbled and boiled over. However, at one point, it disguised itself as a friendly neighborhood refrigerator repair man who left and didn’t actually fix the fridge. How rude.
5. (The End)
The Black Cat is a mess. It is most definitely a wild experience, however, and if you’re looking for something to scratch an Argento itch, this should do the trick. The visuals are inspired and it definitely has a bit of charm. That being said, I don’t think I’d ever sit down to watch it again.
The disc from Severin looks nice - it was culled from a new 2K scan on the material. Unfortunately, the only extra is a 10 minute interview with Luigi Cozzi and Caroline Munro.
